大象传媒

Rainer Maria Rilke鈥檚 Duino Elegies, written between 1912 and 1922, are often considered to be one of the cornerstones of European literature in the 20th Century.

Produced in a time of collapse and change, amidst political turmoil and spiritual flux, the poems grapple with what it means to be human, charting the soul鈥檚 journey through existential despair and fear and separation (鈥淲ho, if I cried out, would hear me among the orders of Angels?鈥�) to moments of revelation and ecstasy (鈥淧raise this world, not the untold world, to the Angel.鈥�)

Rilke is a poet concerned with the task of inhabiting the world - despite its transience and the fact of our mortality - and in the presence of everyday objects, buildings, Things (鈥淒ingen鈥�) he finds his way into a kind of being that exalts in our fleetingness. In the Ninth Elegy he arrives at the phrase, 鈥淧erhaps we are here in order to say: house, bridge, fountain, gate, pitcher, fruit-tree, window [...]鈥� (In German: 鈥淗aus, Br眉cke, Brunnen, Tor, Krug, Obstbaum, Fenster.鈥�)

A century on from the completion of Rilke鈥檚 landmark cycle of poems, this radio hymn takes up the poet鈥檚 call to dwell in 鈥渢he time of the sayable鈥�, with contributions from post-humanist thinker Bayo Akomolafe, archeologist Bettina Bader, German scholar Karen Leeder, and author and storyteller Martin Shaw.

Readings by Ella Russell
Original music by Phil Smith

Produced by Phil Smith
A Falling Tree production for 大象传媒 Radio 4